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Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

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Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#301

Post by TaupeRanger »

dont__panic wrote: post #22

I've seen so much anti-car, pro-walkability, pro-transit, pro-bikeability sentiment online recently. I really hope this is proof of the younger generations -- Millenials, Zoomers, and younger folks even -- waking up to the idea that the USA in particular has become a toxic environment thanks to cars. WFH was a big wakeup call, I think -- once you step away from the commute for a year or two, trying to sit in traffic…

Maybe I'm just not exposed to these ideas because I live in the Midwest, but this entire post sounds like some weird borderline clinical phobia of cars and driving that just doesn't jive at all with my experience, except perhaps a hatred of long car commutes. I can't imagine ever hating cars so much that I'd want to move to a new country...

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#302

Post by twblalock »

pkulak wrote: post #266
chrisco255 wrote: post #147

I love the car and car culture. I've road tripped across the U.S. and live in an RV. I will never go back to living in an apartment. There's no human connection there. I spent years living in apartments and maybe met one or two people, with no meaningful connections ever developed. Cars are great for road tripping, and America is highly optimized for it. You can, with the same vehicle, without unpacking once, travel…

Quoted post unavailable.

Most public transit is subsidized by taxes too.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#304

Post by ChillyWater »

pkulak wrote: post #183
dont__panic wrote: post #22

I've seen so much anti-car, pro-walkability, pro-transit, pro-bikeability sentiment online recently. I really hope this is proof of the younger generations -- Millenials, Zoomers, and younger folks even -- waking up to the idea that the USA in particular has become a toxic environment thanks to cars. WFH was a big wakeup call, I think -- once you step away from the commute for a year or two, trying to sit in traffic…

I'm pretty lucky for an average American, all things considered, and live in an area with a grocery store 15 minutes away by foot, and most everything else under 30 minutes by bike. Public transit isn't amazing, but there's 60 miles of light rail and a decent bus network. My family of 4 still needs (wants?) one car, but we only put about 8000 miles a year on it. All that said, I feel a bit trapped here. I've yet to f…

Not a single good place in the entire United States to move to?

Miami, Savanna, Boston, NYC, Austin, Vermont, Minneapolis, Duluth, Salt Lake City, Chicago, Nashville, Colorado, Scottsdale, Vegas, Tahoe, San Diego, Seattle ...

It seems like there are a lot of different climates and feels to choose from ...

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#305

Post by robrenaud »

dont__panic wrote: post #142
AlwaysRock wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the hardest parts about buying a home, apart from all the stuff that isnt fun about buying a home, is finding somewhere that is walkable to... anything. I've rented my whole life and spent my entire adult life in cities. The idea of having to get in the car to get milk or something from the corner store, or have to drive to ANY restaurant, or not have some type of walking/running path within a few blocks of my…

Any success filtering for walkability in the US when buying a home? As far as I can tell, "walkability" scores are borderline useless -- the small town I currently live in has extremely low "walkability," despite being able to walk or bike to everything I need, whereas the large city I just left has extremely high "walkability" -- despite the fact that walking around town was not pleasant due to high volumes of car t…

Manhattan has a lot of car traffic. Short of the urban core of Philly, DC, Chicago, SF, or my favorite parts of Brooklyn (which also have a lot of car traffic), nothing seems nearly as walkable in the US. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see congestion pricing and fewer cars on the streets in Manhattan.

The best walkable suburbs I've visited, Montclair and Red Bank in NJ and Ardmore, PA seem pretty sad, small, and boring in comparison. Fine for a visit, but I wouldn't wan to spend three days in a row there.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#306

Post by hibikir »

Xylakant wrote: post #182
falcolas wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the hardest parts about buying a home, apart from all the stuff that isnt fun about buying a home, is finding somewhere that is walkable to... anything. That's because if you want an individual home, you're giving up the customer density required to make those amenities viable. In a world with the internet, at-home delivery, and yes, cars, it's simply not economically viable to create a grocery store that on…

That’s just wrong. The village I come from in germany has 8000 inhabitants, pretty much only single/double houses, practically no flats and perfectly walkable. Multiple bakeries and grocery stores, never further than 15 minutes walk. It’s just that these small groceries cannot outcompete supermarkets once people are in the habit of going everywhere by car.

Oh, but he isn't wrong. It's quite likely that your 8000 inhabitants (which are a lot more than 100 families) live close enough together, just because of lack of giant lawns, so that your typical store owner is getting more than 100 customers.

So yes, it's not that you can't have single families, and it's not really about people having cars or not, it's the density, and therefore, it's the lawns and the streets that are too wide, making the number of places that you can go to in a 15 minute walk far smaller

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#307

Post by closeparen »

falcolas wrote: post #225
ARandumGuy wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mostly due to supply and demand. Disregarding market forces, low density housing is some of the most expensive out there. This is due to higher per-unit construction, utility, transportation, and infrastructure costs. Unfortunately, low density construction is the default in the USA. High density housing gets bogged down in reviews and permitting, and medium density housing is effectively illegal in most citi…

The problem is that the supply/demand argument is that the demand largely isn't from people, it's from investment firms. And investment firms don't give two hoots about neighborhoods, density, cars, or anything other than the property's value appreciating over time (which it will, since we can't (without spending gobs of money) create more land). Also, my personal opinion: I never want to live in a dense, or even sem…

Condos are much worse speculation vehicles compared to houses, since most of what you own is (depreciating) structure compared to (appreciating) land. To the extent that you want housing for people vs. speculators, you want multifamily.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#308

Post by asveikau »

eweise wrote: post #293
asveikau wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also carrying capacity, instead of making multiple inefficient trips to a local market multiple times a week I can get all my family's groceries in one trip once a week. This is pretty weird to me. Whenever I've had exposure to a household like that, what actually happens is they buy way too much food to keep track of it, and either you eat too much or it mostly goes bad in the fridge. I find this oddly stress…

Its much cheaper to load up the car at costco every couple of weeks, than go down to the corner store every day.

I feed two kids. If I did my shopping at Costco, I can tell you the food would go bad before I had a chance to use it. I find the idea of Costco pretty stressful.

I'm not necessarily talking about just corner stores either. I have several full on supermarkets in walking distance.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#309

Post by foxyv »

Xylakant wrote: post #182
falcolas wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the hardest parts about buying a home, apart from all the stuff that isnt fun about buying a home, is finding somewhere that is walkable to... anything. That's because if you want an individual home, you're giving up the customer density required to make those amenities viable. In a world with the internet, at-home delivery, and yes, cars, it's simply not economically viable to create a grocery store that on…

That’s just wrong. The village I come from in germany has 8000 inhabitants, pretty much only single/double houses, practically no flats and perfectly walkable. Multiple bakeries and grocery stores, never further than 15 minutes walk. It’s just that these small groceries cannot outcompete supermarkets once people are in the habit of going everywhere by car.

> It’s just that these small groceries cannot outcompete supermarkets once people are in the habit of going everywhere by car.

This is true to a limited extent. If small grocers and bakeries were allowed to setup in mixed use areas they would do a whole lot better. However sticking them an average of 3 miles from their customers in a horrible strip mall kills them.

I would happily pay a premium for having a grocer just down the street instead of having to go 4+ miles to a supermarket. Being able to get a gallon of milk and some onions in 10-15 minutes from a place just down the street will always beat driving to, parking at, and walking around a 10 acre supermarket on a 50 acre parking lot. Just the stress of dodging all the parking lot speedsters is more than enough to keep me far from that place.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#310

Post by riversflow »

ARandumGuy wrote: post #143
trombone5000 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less density doesn't imply less housing, especially when empty land is cheap, as it typically is in the USA. You just use more space. I hate cars, and I hate how expensive housing is, but as far as I can tell, housing is even more expensive in places (in the USA anyway) where cars are less necessary.

This is mostly due to supply and demand. Disregarding market forces, low density housing is some of the most expensive out there. This is due to higher per-unit construction, utility, transportation, and infrastructure costs. Unfortunately, low density construction is the default in the USA. High density housing gets bogged down in reviews and permitting, and medium density housing is effectively illegal in most citi…

Do you have a citation for this? My intuition is that the construction of low density track housing would have far less regulatory burden than high density housing. It also has a (more) robust labor force in the US especially compared with high density construction, a framing carpenter does not a steel fitter make.

> High density housing gets bogged down in reviews and permitting,

Yes, because it's more high stakes and should be subject to a greater level of scrutiny than a 1-2 story single family dwelling. Check out the Millennium tower debacle or that apartment building that collapsed in Florida if you think otherwise.

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